Hands-On: LG G Pro 2 and G2 Mini

LG announced the G Pro 2 earlier this month and showed it to the press at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As the name suggests, the device is a follow up to last year's phone. Here are our impressions of LG's fabled phablet.

LG clearly put in a lot of work to give the G Pro 2 a premium look and feel. The G Pro 2 may be made of plastic, but it feels strong and the materials are of high quality. LG went with a minimalistic design, but it really works. The phone is thin and light, and the bezels are razor thin. The front of the G Pro 2 really is all screen. The I like the chrome band that circles the outer edge, it really looks classy.

Of course, it is a very large phone. The G Pro 2 is enormous in order to accommodate the 5.9-inch 1080p HD screen. LG favors in-plane switching LCDs, and the G Pro 2's truly looks fantastic. It's hard to put into works just how attractive it is. It is sharp, clean, and very bright.

G Pro 2

There are no buttons on the front of the device because the G Pro 2 adopts the same design language seen on last year's G2. That means the buttons are on the back surface. I can't say I really like this design, but LG is going with it for its premium devices moving forward. The buttons are positioned close to the top of the back surface. There's a screen lock/power button in the middle and volume buttons above and below it. The whole assembly has a curved feel to it and it is really easy to tell which button you're pressing. There are no other buttons around the outside of the phone. The microUSB port is on the bottom and the headphone jack is on top.

LG is making a lot of hay about the new Knock Code feature. Knock Code is an evolution of KnockOn, which was first introduced on last year's G2. Knock Code lets users create one of 86,000 possible wake/unlock combinations. The code turns the screen on and unlocks it at the same time. In practice, it was very wonky. I had to repeat the sample pattern several times to get it to work. My guess is this will get easier over time, but in the few moments we spent with the phone, I found it hard to use.

The rest of the user interface is fairly typical for an LG device. LG has added several features to the camera, such as the ability to adjust focus after the fact, as well as mode shooting modes.

GPro2 UI

My first impressions of the phone are fairly positive. For people who like phablets - or really large phones - there's plenty to like. LG doesn't believe in using a stylus (like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3), but it still offers multitasking and other split-screen modes for power users. LG hasn't said when the device will come to the U.S., but it probably won't be too long before it shows up.